This blog documents the travels, projects, shows and impressions of a radical poet who wanders around this doomed planet in a search for intelligent life.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Paul Gilroy-Slavery and The Culture of Ignorance

Paul Gilroy is a professor of Sociology at London School of Economics. He is the author of several books including There A'int No Black In the Union Jack, and The Black Atlantic. In 2007, he gave the following lecture regarding the 200th anniversary commemoration of the ending of the slave trade in the British Empire. Gilroy says that the celebrations of the end of the British slave trade are rooted in what he describes as a "culture of ignorance" concerning the relationship between slavery and industrial capitalism, as well as the manifestations of racism in Britain today.